THE YEAR BEHIND US: FROM EYOF AND TUKE TO NATO

By Sead Omeragić

As always at the end of the year, results are summarized. So far, we have subtracted more than we have added. This year, there are some different signs of recovery. Sarajevo and East Sarajevo hosted the European Youth Winter Festival (EYOF) 2019 in February. This Festival was marked as very successful. In February, after 35 years, Sarajevo was once again the center of the world. The Olympic flame at Košev was lit by the best BiH athlete, judoka Larisa Cerić. Larisa won a silver medal this year at the European Championship in Minsk, the capital of Ukraine.

On March 20, the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts (IRMCT) upheld Radovan Karadžić's conviction for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, increasing his sentence from 40 years to life imprisonment. Victims breathed a sigh of relief, with another justice delivered by the exceptionally successful International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

In Foča, on May 4, 470 years after its construction and more than a quarter of a century after its complete destruction, the rebuilt Aladža Mosque was reopened. It was and will remain a cultural and historical monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a symbol of the city of Foča, and a masterpiece of Islamic architecture of the Ottoman period.

In June, Bosnia and Herzegovina, led by coach Bilal Šuman, achieved its first qualification for the European Championship in its handball history with a great victory away against the Czech Republic, 24:23. Thus, BiH handball players became the first national team of BiH in collective sports to play in both the World Championship and the European Championship. Šuman's "orchestra" made us happy, although we expect the greatest successes precisely from our brilliant handball players. The European Handball Championship starts in about ten days, from January 9 to 26, 2020, in Vienna, Graz, Trondheim, Gothenburg, and Stockholm. The Dragons will play in Trondheim, Norway, with France, Norway, and Portugal.

Amel Tuka, the best athlete of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans, took second place in the final of the World Athletics Championships in Doha on October 1. In the 800-meter race, he won a silver medal with a time of 1:43.47. This was the greatest success in BiH athletics. This is the second medal for this world-class athlete, after the bronze in Beijing in August 2015.

Husein ef. Kavazović was re-elected as the Rais al-ulama of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina on October 12, and will serve as the supreme head of the Islamic Community for the next seven years.

At the end of October, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg delivered a judgment against the state of BiH based on the lawsuit filed by the brave Mostar resident Irma Baralija, also the vice-president of Naša stranka, due to the failure to hold elections in Mostar. The European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that there was a violation of the general prohibition of discrimination under the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights decided this unanimously. The court in Strasbourg found that a legal vacuum arose from the authorities' failure to implement the Constitutional Court's decision from 2010, which concerned the provisions regulating local elections in Mostar, and ordered the authorities to align these provisions with the Constitution. Local elections in Mostar were held in 2008, and the city was governed by Mayor Ljubo Bešlić, who had not had the necessary democratic legitimacy since 2012. Such a situation was not in accordance with the principle of the rule of law. Elections in Mostar will be held in 2020.
Ten years have passed since the Sejdić-Finci ruling in Strasbourg. It is known that HDZ BiH does not allow the constitutional and electoral affirmation of Others. Dragan Čović continues to seek legally untenable changes to the Election Law. How many more years will it take for his partners from SDA to send him to Strasbourg with a complaint?

At the end of October 2019, Hamza Turulja, a karateka from Sarajevo, won a silver medal at the World Championship for cadets, juniors, and U21 in Chile.

On December 10, Austrian writer Peter Handke, known for denying genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in Sweden. The decision to award the Nobel Prize to Handke caused numerous reactions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in other countries.

Our football team finished the group stage of the European Championship in fourth place, behind Italy, Finland, and Greece, earning 13 points. Such results also meant a change of coach. Robert Prosinečki was dismissed as the head of the national football team, and Duško Bajević, a legendary Velež player and long-time successful football coach, took his place at the end of the year.

That not everything is about success was shown by the change of the Sarajevo Canton Government. One might say, successful people are leaving, and proven and traditionally unsuccessful people are coming. The rejuvenated Canton Government played a good game. Why are they being replaced? Not only because it is a familiar struggle for the billion-dollar cantonal budget in Sarajevo, but also because some long-time rulers have become afraid of the success of this youth. The people might also see clearly, so it is better to react in time.

Bosnia and Herzegovina sent its Reform Program (ANP) to NATO simultaneously with the official confirmation of Zoran Tegeltija as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the BiH Parliamentary Assembly. This was a sign that BiH is finally on its way to the safe embrace of this military alliance. Many consider this one of the most important events of 2019. With BiH's entry into NATO, peace would finally return to the entire Balkans.

Young people continued to leave the country, and there is anxiety about March when Germany will fully open its borders to foreign skilled workers. However, many are aware that BiH's entry into NATO and the creation of safe conditions for foreign investment would stop this terrible exodus of young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina. BiH has so far survived in long and painful pauses. Perhaps better times are finally coming.

All in all, this year we rejoiced more than we grieved. Some things have moved from a standstill, where we have seen them for ten or twenty years.